Jendresen Thinks Regime Change Doomed His Script

Erik Jendresen, who was at one time expected to write the screenplay for Star Trek XI, said that his script had nothing to do with the reasons Rick Berman left the Star Trek franchise, nor was Berman's departure the cause of Jendresen's project being shelved.

"The notion that 'Star Trek: The Beginning' is what sunk Berman is really offensive," Jendresen told SyFy Portal. He explained that by the time he was working on the script, Berman was attached to the project in name only.

At the time Jendresen was named as the writer of the eleventh Star Trek feature, Donald DeLine was the president of Paramount. But not long after, DeLine was replaced by Gail Berman and the studio decided to go in a different direction than Jendresen's planned trilogy. Jendresen intended a somewhat earlier prequel than the one reportedly in progress from J.J. Abrams and his team; he intended to focus on Kirk's great-grandfather, Tiberius Chase. He believes the new heads at Paramount were not interested in keeping DeLine's projects and that the rejection of his script had more to do with the turnover itself than with an objection to his own work.

Jendresen also said that he does not believe Abrams will have a particularly easier job rebooting the franchise than he would have had trying to work within existing canon. "The whole delight and challenge of doing this, the reason I did it, was because I was bound and determined to write a tale that was completely faithful to the canon, and more importantly, to the spirit of Star Trek," he explained. "In spite of the shortcomings in 'Enterprise' - which were substantial - the canon was rich enough to provide clues that make filling that gap in the tale challenging."

Nonetheless, Jendresen is looking forward to Abrams' movie and is busy promoting his direct-to-DVD film Sublime, which hits stores today.